Tea Room
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Tea Room in February 2025
The Tea Room served as a place for overflow seating during meals as well as a reading and writing area for the Jefferson family. The coldest room in the house, the Tea Room housed a now missing stove in the semi-circular niche. Jefferson referred to the Tea Room as his "most honorable suite" where he displayed likenesses of friends and Revolutionary heroes, such as Lafayette, Washington, Franklin and Paul Jones.
The elliptical arch into the Tea Room from the Dining Room features two sets of pocket doors that slide into the wall and a transom that is filled in with glass on both sides. The pocket doors are designed to admit light into the Dining Room and reduce the exchange of warm and cold air from one room to the other.
Dimensions: 15' 1" × 11' 2"; ceiling 17' 11"
Order: Doric
Source: A building in Albano, Italy, depicted in Fréart, Parallèle de l'Architecture Antique avec la Moderne[1]
Color: Unpainted plaster; today the room is painted to replicate a plaster finish
Purpose of Room: Dining area; reading and writing area for Jefferson
Architectural features: Double pocket doors on rollers separate the Tea Room – the western-most, and coldest, room in the house – from the Dining Room; based on one of Jefferson's favorite architectural shapes, the octagon
Furnishings of Note: In this room, Jefferson displayed his "most honorable suite":[2] likenesses of his friends and American heroes, including busts of Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones, Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington; the room had a reading and writing arrangement perhaps similar to the one Jefferson kept in his Cabinet; at one time the room had a stove in a semi-circular niche in the wall.
Houdon Bust of Lafayette
Objects typically on display in this room
- Benjamin Franklin Bust by Houdon (Sculpture)
- Benjamin Smith Barton (Physiognotrace)
- Brescia Marble Table
- Coffee Urn
- Cream Pitcher
- Coaster
- Dessert Spoons
- Dumbwaiters
- George Washington Bust by Houdon (Sculpture)
- Henry Dearborn (Physiognotrace)
- Jefferson Oval Portrait by Memin (Physiognotrace)
- John Paul Jones Bust (Sculpture)
- Ladle
- Dickerson, Mahlon (Physiognotrace)
- Marquis de Lafayette Bust (Sculpture)
- Seau Crénelé
- Shield Back Side Chair
- Silver Plates by Lamine
- Table Forks by Anthiaume
- Table Forks by Sommé
- Tablespoons by Anthiaume
- Tripod Salts
- Vegetable Dishes
References
- ^ Roland Fréart de Chambray, Parallèle de l'Architecture Antique avec la Moderne... (Paris: Chez l'auteur, libraire du roi pour l'artillerie et le génie, à l'image Notre-Dame, 1766).
- ^ Jefferson to James Ronaldson, February 7, 1820, in PTJ:RS, 15:383. Transcription available in Founders Online.